


Infinitesimal

by buckshot_lariat



Series: Infinitesimal [1]
Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Anti Steve Rogers, Bittersweet, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Character Study, Civil War Team Captain America, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Comfort, Gen, Identity Issues, Introspection, Kinda?, Overstimulation, POV Second Person, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Ant-Man (2015), Pre-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective Scott Lang, Retelling, Scott Lang Needs a Hug, Scott Lang-centric, Self-Hatred, Team as Family, Time Skips, Worldbuilding, anti tony stark, anyway i am bad at tagging so lets see, ask to tag, i whipped this out in like. a few hours and likely missed some stuff but impulse post amirite, probably out of character, scott gets the REAL short end of the stick with clint, whoops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-14 17:06:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16916880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckshot_lariat/pseuds/buckshot_lariat
Summary: They all tell you that having such passion for humankind is a great thing, something to be nurtured and cherished.You just think it's an endless loop, trying to save humanity from itself. You almost hate it, but you can't leave it alone. In no world, no diverging timeline, can you turn a blind eye. It's not who you are. You're bright and painful in your love, intensity turned up so bright for every setting that you feel like your light should be visible on the outside. You feel like a star, crammed into a human body.What they don't tell you about is the pain those passionate extremes come with. How stars, as bright and pure as they are, burn.[Scott-centric sort-of-study on a semi-realistic look of superhero-ing, and the consequences. Bittersweet.]





	1. Overtired/Overthink

**Author's Note:**

> so uh. didnt really beta this or anything but i've been itching to write something for scott since i saw ant-man in theaters and he became an instant stan. finally got around to writing this bc the boy scott's getting some real recognition for the trailer! anyway have some Angst bc why not! 
> 
> this was a neat challenge for me, writing in second pov and the worldbuilding! i tried to look at a world without captain america being alive and well before being discovered and his legacy in america after wwii and the effects of all the pressure on scott to be antman, to stop yellowjacket or the world's at stake, the quantum realm and how he would more realistically deal with that!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott grows up with his reality clear and his future muddy. He makes it, somehow. Within a good handful of years, his life both falls apart and sews itself back together, different but better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter name: hiding with boys by creeper because im a dramatic dumbass

When you're born, your mother recalls something about angels and stars, something about blinding light and wheels and swords and bubbling magma. You ask your father about it and he tells you she had a fuzzy recollection, painkillers and drugs afterwards because of complications, whatever that means. He cuffs you lightly sometimes, fondly, calls you a troublemaker without a reason and gives you the occasional worried look. You haven't done anything wrong, but promise to stay out of trouble,  _for him._ He tells you that you're a good kid, sounding baffled. You brush it off.

You’re nine when you get your first referral.

You’re seventeen when you get your tenth.

You’re eighteen when you go to college, full ride scholarship for electrical engineering, a masters degree.

You’re a child when the adults admire you, tell you how amazing you’re going to be, your morals and sense of justice something to be praised and held high. They tell you you’re going to be a hero. You think you don’t want to be one. You want to be normal and happy. They don’t like this answer, but amend that Captain America was like you, supposedly. That you were like Captain America. Captain America is a fictional sort of man, pure and right and superhuman. You wonder if he wanted to be held to the light like a god nowadays. You wonder if he was as human as you are, wonder who he _really_ was, behind the decades of worship and layers of propaganda and toxic mindsets.

You feel like an object to be admired behind glass. You wonder if Captain America felt like that too, when he was alive. You think so, and you hold that idea of a real, _human_ Captain to your chest.

You’re a child the first time the same adults stare you down with a petty, detached sort of disappointment after your first referral.  You feel vindictive, sharp and bitter, satisfied. Good. You wouldn’t be someone fake, some Captain America for the school, for the adults, to hold aloft. You’re Scott Lang, and you’re _yourself._

You’re an adult when you look back and give your past self a pat on the back. Good for you, baby Scott. That was shitty of them, those teachers and adults.

Heroes, people with morals and honor, aren’t some untouchable beings, you learn. The world is dark and poisonous, but the rest just sit and watch, turn blind eyes. Nobody is punished, too many people, too many _demons_ getting away with it because of humanity as a whole. Everyone has a price, everyone needs something else.

You love too much, feel too much, an intensity that sears your insides and consumes you, something wordless and raw and _so much_ . But you don’t want it, _don’t want it don’t want it don’t want it don’t want it,_ so you’re just Scott. Just Scott is good. Just Scott is safe. Just Scott is a normal, working man.

Somewhere along the way Just Scott begins to break down, and between shifts and consults, you break into homes to steal from thieves. Between jobs, you tackle scams and purposeful lapses in security created to feed companies money and injure the working world. Somewhere along the way, you meet Maggie.

You fall in love with Maggie, and that love nestles somewhere between Just Scott and that hot magma in your chest. She’s everything, your whole world. The curve of her cheekbones, the point of her chin, the arch of her lips, the mischievous glint to her eyes that catches you and hooks you close. Of coffee and a sweet sort of creamy sugar, of late mornings and sunbeams and softness in every aspect.

She supports you, even if she doesn’t _really_ like the midnight rogue-ing, and you don’t think it’s possible to love someone as much as you do now.

Cassie is born, and you realize it is, because the love you feel as you hold her in your arms for the first time, inexplicable and _real_ , is the best feeling in the world. It burns in the same spectrum as your magma heart, and you clutch it in hand. You clutch it until it burns cold, searing, and only grip it tighter in response.

This whole life you’ve build for yourself breaks so easily, glass, under that roiling, bubbling need to _help,_ to _fix,_ and it’s a blink and you’re being fired from Vistacorp, and another, and you’re driving your old boss’ car into his pool, and another, and a man is picking you off the floor carefully and introducing himself as Luis in your shared cell.

Luis becomes an anchor, a tight bond made strong by prison’s chains. The time spins fast out of your control, day after day after day before you’re _free,_ and all you can think about is _Cassie, Cassie, need to see Cassie, are they okay?_ Luis must read your panic because he offers a place to live, offers to help you back on your feet.

You don’t want to steal. You never wanted to be the bad guy, but that’s all you are in Maggie’s eyes, now. Jobs throw you out, aliases are pointless in the long run, and when you go to see Cassie, _Cassie, Cassie,_ she’s young and beautiful and so smart, so smart and happy and that’s all you need to settle that rampancy inside of your chest.

Maggie doesn’t look at you with that sort of adoring love anymore. That’s okay, you think, because neither of you are the same as you were before everything. She looks at the police guy, whatever his name is, and has a different look. Something similar to how she looked at you, and you think he must not be that bad if she loves him so whole, so purely, so happily. Maggie deserves it, and you’ll always hold those moments close to your chest, those periods of your life.

You’re an adult, a life lived, when you steal from Hank Pym and are thrown headfirst into the rest of your life.

Hope is stunning power, deadly grace, a sort of wildfire that burns from the inside out, so sharp and ashy it clogs your lungs and throat with the intensity of it. She’s a soothing balm over the shock and rush of it all, slowing you down where you begin to wind up, eyeing the edges of your mask and Just Scott, catching you and sitting you back up when you think the burden on your shoulders becomes a little too much.

Ha. You knew she cared, you joke and hand her half of your orange. She looks at you like you’re crazy, but sue you, you’re a dad at heart. You were a dad before Cassie was even a thought. Beneath the judgmental look, you catch something genuine and softer. You think you’re just glad she doesn’t actually hate you. Sometimes… you think she makes everything alright.

Something must show on your face when you zone out because she shakes you back into reality with a worry tinged look.

“Scott?” She asks, a hand on your shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” you spit out, take a bite of citrus and will yourself to go boneless in the chair. The acidic taste is familiar and bitter on your tongue. You focus on it and clear your head easily enough. “I’m fine.”

She doesn’t believe you, not completely, but time is of the essence so you leave it to her to worry over. You’re not one for worrying and needling where it wasn’t necessary. You were smart and a decent on-the-spot tactician, but usually for heisting and in-field problems. Not domestics, even your own.

But it’s fine, because you sneak in with all of them, both of your worlds overlapping into the Pym Tech Heist. You can’t wait to tell this story to Cassie, she’d love it.

But then it’s not fine, because YellowJacket’s after Cassie and all of that carefully contained magma, that fury, that boiling, twisting, volatile thing forces itself out of you, and one moment you're fighting the man, ripping desperately at the casing of his suit, and the next you're shrinking.

It’s shrinking, the familiar, very faint full-body feeling like a shiver down your spine. Then it keeps going and everything’s smaller than you’ve ever seen, smaller and smaller and the feeling continues on and on like a broken record you can’t reach to stop. It burns at the back of your eyes, tingles down to the insides of your very bones and you can’t stop thinking of Hank and his warning, you should’ve listened, you idiot, but it was _Cassie,_ so you close your eyes, suck it up, and prepare for an infinite eternity to pass you by even as a very human panic shrieks at you to get away.

YellowJacket is done for and that’s what matters. He’s probably dead and _that_ stings, but _Cassie’s calling for you, for her daddy, she needs you–_

Cassie needs you, so you make yourself bigger, make yourself bigger until you’re back and all sensations narrow into _Cassie,_ and she’s safe so it’s okay, you’re not there anymore, you’re not there and she’s here and it’s _okay._

There’s a Thomas the Tank Engine that’s way too big in the street, a giant ant making its rounds down the sidewalk, and thankfully Paxton lets you scuttle off with little question and much gratitude after fixing the few things you can and limping your way to Luis’ van, driving slowly back to what's become your home.

Hank, Luis, Hope, all of them help you back, help you out of the damned suit, patch your bruises and bumps with cold wraps and bandages even as your hands shake so much you can’t hold a half-poured glass with both hands and burst into tears a few times.

They don’t question and put you back together with tender touches, soothing motions and soft textures under your fingers as you rest for the first time in memory, hot insides cooled and sharp edges dulled. That racetrack in your chest slows until it’s a clock, ticking away and you _sleep._

The next day you tell Hank about the shrinking and despite the poorly veiled worry in his expression, it’s washed away by _hope,_ and that makes it all worth it. That hope for the future, that feeling knowing Cassie’s okay and cared for, that hunger in your chest temporarily sated.

Eventually, Luis tells you Falcon is looking for Ant-Man, and almost instantly everything sharpens back into focus as though it’d never left because people need your help and you've never been able to deny an ask for help. Maybe that's your weakness. You almost want to refuse, but you think of  _Falcon,_ angry furrowed eyebrows, scowl, not one to ask for help, directly asking after you, and you ask Luis where he wanted to meet.


	2. lie on your bed (lie through your teeth)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott is called to Germany, by both his own desire to help and the call of Falcon. It goes about as well as you'd expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys really liked the first chapter and it spurred me into whipping this one out really fast! thank you all of you who commented! you really made my day(s) and really kicked me into gear for this one
> 
> that said, i will probably reread this later and tweak some spelling error and grammar mistakes but this is more or less the 2nd chapter! thank you!

You're not entirely sure when you started to resent Tony Stark.

Maybe it was growing up with the image of Stark, rich party boy who'd never really struggled, never really _cared._ Who threw weapons out with his name proudly plastered across the sides with little care beyond the knowledge that the weapons were being made and used, and therefore not his problem.

It stands against a lot of what you believe in. Stark gets a wake up call, and suddenly he's a new man. You don't trust him, but he's a controversial topic in common conversation so you very purposefully keep away from outwardly labeling yourself either anti or pro Stark.

Tony Stark becomes Iron Man, and the public doesn't trust him. You _very much_ don't trust him. He may have had a change of heart, but he's selfish. You're selfish too, you recognize. You're both human, but there's a difference between Tony Stark taking leaps and bounds in multiple fields to further himself and you spending some of Hank's money for an extra donut because you're having a bad morning.

Tony Stark rubs you the wrong way. He has flashy tech, startlingly advanced, and he… doesn't use it to help people. He uses it for his own gain, to further himself, to become a better Iron Man.

Never mind the reactor and how many lives a medically approved version could save. Never mind the clean energy and what it could do for the energy crisis. His worry that weapons would get into the wrong hands was dumb in your eyes. You ran that risk when you create weapons, period.

Frankly, you're sick of it. You just can't wrap your mind around it, having such a capacity for legal, well meaning good and not doing it. The few attempts, Ultron, had completely fallen apart, unchecked. Maybe you're projecting. Maybe you're being too harsh of a critic. Maybe you can't be one to talk, as illegal as your methods were and are.

Everything falls apart in D.C., and one thing the news keeps hush-hush under the info-dump is the helicarriers and their Stark tech. Such powerful beasts of machinery, such use of Stark's hoarded tech, and it's being used to fly a floating gun at the back of the planet's head.

Stark tech's being used in what would've been a constant reminder, step out of line and they'll put you down. It makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up, a cold shiver race down your spine unlike the full body one that comes with shrinking.

It really, really rubs you the wrong way, but you don't like to start arguments so you zip your mouth shut and keep it like that.

Hank Pym also hates Stark. He seemed to think you'd disagree with him, fight for Stark's side, and is pleasantly surprised when you agree that Tony Stark is, indeed, a real piece of work.

You two get along exceedingly well on that subject.

Falcon asks you for help, particularly for Tony Stark, and it's not too hard to agree. The man needed to be taken down a peg, anyway, and it was just luck that it happened to line up with your morals and catch bulls-eye on your empathy target.

You can't really say no to Captain America. You try and compare that concept Captain you created as a child to Steve Rogers and they mesh surprisingly well. It's grounding to know that under all that impossibility there's a real man, struggling like the rest of them on this tiny little ball in the middle of nowhere.

The first of them you meet is that arrow guy. You sorta recognize him from the Avengers, maybe, kinda. He updates you on the truth of it, and if possible you think you're even more invested. You wonder if Hank will hate you for stealing the suit. But Bucky is being wrongly framed and crazy super soldiers were going to wake up or something? You wonder if Hope would ever forgive you. Everything is weird, but people need your help and maybe part of the reason is because you're being asked by a bunch of actual real life superheroes for help. Maybe.

You find that Just Scott works great on arrow guy, lighten-the-mood dad jokes and coin tricks don't work, apparently he's a dad himself, so you trade a few dad tips and tricks back and forth. He rolls his eyes at you as you pile into the van with a yawn, but you get the feeling it's only _partially_ out of annoyance.

You think you might be making him uncomfortable. Maybe it's how easily you're going along with it, but what, are you supposed to be grumpy and grouchy and pretending you aren't jumping at the opportunity to help? Might As Well just cut out the middle man.

 

The plan has you hidden carefully small in the Captain’s shield as he makes a move for a 'copter. Then the weird red-blue spider-kid is stealing you from the air and you’re yelling into the comms because _holy shit that’s fast_.

_“You okay, TicTac?”_

“I’m fine, just really dizzy,” you answer back before the kid, he’s way too young for this, Stark got a _child involved,_ cuts into the conversation. You’ve been spotted, his lenses narrowing at you in worried wonder, “Guys, something's–”

Your kick to the head sends him sprawling backwards with a shout, allowing you to snatch the shield and back flip to the Captain.

You can’t help it, that giddy feeling still stirring in you. “I believe this is yours, Captain America.”

_“W-Whu-What the hell was that?”_

And then the battle starts.

The Black Widow underestimates you. Maybe it was your childish glee. Whatever. She’s confident in her abilities, but she’s no Hope Van Dyne so a firm kick to the groin and attempted arm drag doesn’t do much but make you uncomfortable until you shrink out of her grasp and turn it on her, flipping her onto her front and twisting her arm up and behind her back.

Well, that was until she gets you with a Widow Bite and you go denting into a metal container with a groan and a thud. By the time you recover, fingers still twitching with leftover shocks and vision blurred slightly around the edges, she’s gone and the explosions no longer shake the ground beneath your feet. You climb to them to meet up where the rest of the team is forming up in a sprint, alarm and adrenaline heightening your senses as your body catches up with the situation.

The weird forehead crystal guy ( _?_ ) with red skin ( _??_ ) uses his forehead laser ( _???_ ) to etch a line in the ground, all of you quickly shuffling to a stop at the abrupt warning.

He’s talking, something-something-consequences-something, but honestly you’re just freaked out by the laser. He just has that? In his head? What? _What?_

Then you’re all running again, it’s a lot of running, isn’t it? Black Widow is staring you down again but you’ve gotten more dangerous looks for less, so you charge her despite your instincts screaming _holy shit, she’s going to murder you._

You shrink for a punch she blocks, throwing you back into full-size. She moves for a forearm to the gut but you jump into a roll over it to get her from behind. She predicts it easily enough, spotting you and meeting your kick with one of her own, hard enough to the gut that your insides clench in pain through the suit’s armor and absorption. You shrink to dodge the second kick and snap back in time to use her spinning momentum to give her an arm drag of your own, rolling to her feet with a grimace afterwards.

Black Widow visibly pauses and you have a heartbeat of _alarm_ before you’re getting smacked straight out of the air by an explosion behind you, eating concrete and leaving a few sizable dents in your path as you bounce and skid across the ground and through the air alike. You blearily raise your head when you roll to a stop with a gag of dizzy vertigo, but the arrow guy is already facing off with her so you take a moment to catch your breath and strategize.

Iron Man and War Machine, Iron Patriot, whatever they were calling him now, were both dominating the sky. They had the advantage of Falcon being Team Cap’s only air support, one of them keeping him busy while the other ran distraction on the ground, giving the other team the hand up. Stark was brash, reckless, unlike the other one. He was priority.

You get to your feet and shake off the lasting effects of the tumble, plan quickly forming as the Scarlet Witch took out Black Widow for the time being. Arrow guy meets you halfway to cover, both of you pressing close and doing a fast visual check over as he caught his breath.

As soon as his breathing evens out, still sharp and fast but reasonable, you begin. “Listen, I’ve got a plan to take out Stark, but I’ll need a lift.”

Arrow guy looks doubtful. “I can’t fly, buddy.”

“No. But I can shrink and you can shoot. All you gotta do is shoot me close and I can get the rest of the way, don’t even worry about it.”

His eyes light up in understanding and he quickly spins his quiver, pulling out a fragmented arrow with glowing blue sides and holding it out. “Would this work?”

The arrowhead has grooves, enough for you to hold on. “It’s _perfect._ Run distraction while I shut him down, will ya? _”_

He notches the arrow smoothly with a nod and you take a sharp, instinctive breath before shrinking down, carefully holding on and settling on the shiny, matte metal.

“I need you to flatten yourself, or the arrow might not make the distance.”

You do as you’re told, lining up with one of the fragments he says he will detonate last, and give him a look over your shoulder.

“You good?”

“Yeah,” you shiver with another shot of adrenaline and mild terror. Like a roller coaster. Like a really, really fast roller coaster. With a chance of possible death by fall and-or explosion. But it was fine. It was good. You got this. “No, I’m good Arrow Guy. Let’s go, let’s go!” Between seconds, you’re cutting through the air like a bullet and crouching to your feet as the pieces fall one by one until Stark’s _right there, jump--_ and you’re screaming, probably screaming over comms but at least you muted your helmet mic so Stark can’t hear you.

It’s satisfying, threading the needle between his fingers, crashing onto his forearm and half-stumbling half-sprinting the short distance, letting the momentum carry you into a tucking roll to effortlessly slide between flaps of shifting metal plates.

Thanks for the impact training, Hope.

There’s a few whines, his repulsors or whatever he called them, a few familiar explosions vibrating through the metal you recognize as arrow-related, before you find the important pieces farther up his arm. You were so glad you got your masters in electrical engineering, because as advanced as Stark was in electronics, it’s all built on basics you have a degree in. God, you’re so cool.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y?”

You startle mid-yank of a wire you’re half sure leads to diagnostic of the arm pieces when a voice seems to emanate from all around you. _“We have some weapons systems offline.”_

“They _what.”_

You recover easily enough and turn on your helmet mic as you kick a few things around in the semi-dark of the suit’s shoulder boards. “Oooh, you gotta– you’re gonna have to take this into the shop.”

You punctuate it with a sharp twist and yank of a metallic bundle of cords from a processor. Eat it, Stark.

_“Who’s. Speaking.”_

You move back down the now vertical arm, landing on a jutting piece of hardware. “It’s… your conscience,” you force a welded plug-in from its port with a few sparks. “We don’t talk a lot these days.”

There’s a hint of fear in his voice when he calls for his AI again and you’re just managing to rip a particularly stubborn chunk of welding when you hear that omni-directional voice again.

_“Deploying fire suppression system.”_

A hiss starts up from your left when you heave the next wire over your head. At first there’s nothing, then a thick, fast moving smog rolling your way.

“Uh oh.”

You let out a small panicked whine as the thick fog chills you immediately, clinging to you and making the suit creak faintly. Get out, get out, get out, get out–

You barely manage to swing yourself through the tech, the mist on your heels, before it catches up and spits you out, slamming you over the head and arms and a particularly nasty crack to the chest with each jutting piece of machinery that just _keeps going, how long is this man's arm?_

Between one breath and the next, you’re free falling with a pained scream. You think you hear your name around the flood of white-noise-terror that consumes you.

You, Scott Lang, in all your glory, hit concrete with a deafening crack.

All of the air is jolted from your lungs, no moment to prepare, no warning. One second you’re screaming, falling, and in a heartbeat your whole body shakes to your very core with the force of augmented landing. Your mind blanks, vision and hearing cutting out completely, body so far away from grasp you don’t even think for a moment that you _know_ how to move. All you can do is breathe, close your eyes, and try to minimize the tidal wave of vertigo that swallows you a half-second afterwards. It’s a thousand times worse from your spill a bit ago, intense and all consuming.

Your first coherent thought after that is _fuck._

Then, vision blurring back into focus and hearing returning to that same white noise and faint voices, you catch the comms.

The Captain and Bucky are looking for cover, the battle continuing without you. Good, good, you need a minute. You really want to sleep…

“Scott? You good, TicTac?”

TicTac… you liked TicTacs… hell, focus, Scott. Focus. Mid-battle, focus. They need your help.

You wish Hope and Hank were here, in your ear and keeping you awake, keeping your  _company_ , as you feel your body struggle to keep you running. Hank. Why was Hank important?

_A shot of adrenaline, a few other things mixed in. Hank flashes the vial at you before demonstrating how you could inject it into your arm from the suit’s controls on the back of your left forearm. “If it’s an all-or-nothing, this’ll get you on your feet. Numb everything, whip you into shape, throw your body into overdrive ‘til one of us can get to you, you can end the fight, or you can get away to somewhere safe. Emergencies only, Scott. I mean it. It’ll mess you up.”_

You find the panel and inject yourself with numb fingers, feeling the difference almost immediately. It starts slowly allowing you to retake control of your limbs, shifting into a sitting position and then to your feet to crawl from your crater. It burns and itches in your veins, speeding fast through your bloodstream, spreading out as it does until the burn lessens in pain, dulls your agony.

 _“We gotta go,”_ Bucky’s saying as you slowly begin to piece yourself back together, body slowly kicking back to life. “That guy’s probably in Siberia by now.”

“We gotta draw out the flyers,” Cap pants into the mic. The concoction burns in your veins. You bounce to your feet and struggle to contain a grin. Wow, you felt _great._ Better than great. Absolutely amazing! God, like you could take on the world, even. “I’ll take Vision, you get to the jet.” Was that the red guy?

There’s a noticeable shift and you connect the dots quickly. If there was one thing you were good at it was thinking. You might not be cool or particularly strong, powerful, but you were smart. Thinking, your brain, was your forte. You could already see where this was going.

They weren’t going to make it. To get Bucky and Cap out, someone’d have to stay behind. One last wind to hold them off. You still had the experimental tech, but it was still planning. The effects of it were still being outlined.

Slower movement, higher metabolism, enormous strain on the body, poor balance. Probably more you didn't know about.

That injection seems to web over in your chest, brushing that bright soul of yours and joining until all you feel is a heavy tingling and buzz in your muscles to _move,_ to _help,_ to buy time _._ They need help. They need help. They need help, and you can do that, can’t you? You can help?

But that rational part of your brain, the Just Scott that keeps you in line, speaks up. It cuts cleanly through the haze as the conversation continues on without you.

_Are you willing to die for this?_

_“No, you get to the jet. Both of you. The rest of us aren’t getting out of here.”_

You feel so incredibly small, smaller than anything in the universe when you stare down at your clenched fists, clammy palms in your maybe-sorta-leather suit, at those two buttons on the top-sides of your knuckles. Those two blessed, cursed, both, buttons that reflect mockingly at you in the noonlight.

_“As much as I hate to admit it, if we’re gonna win this one, some of us might have to lose it.”_

_Are you willing to put it all on the line for this?_

Falcon cuts back in. _“This isn’t the real fight, Steve.”_

You feel larger than life, larger and bigger than yourself and bigger than petty airport fights and domestics when you imagine all of trial runs for the software. You rest your thumbs carefully over the small buttons, listen to the sound of battle around the steel steps you're hiding behind. As you listen to the sound of your heartbeat too loud in your ears, of the textured thumb gloves over the chipped, scratched plastic of the buttons, you take a moment to think. To really _think._ Cassie, _Cassie,_ she’d be at risk. And Maggie. And Paxton. Hank and Hope, all of them.

But. They need your help. You’ve never been able to refuse a call for help. Before all the superheroing, before the moonlighting, before all of it.

_“Alright, Sam. What’s the play?”_

_Are you willing? For them?_

_“We need a diversion, something big.”_

You think about Bucky, this man you hardly know, who's story makes you want to wrap him in a blanket and hold him, tell him it's going to be okay and it's not his fault. You think of Wanda, so young, _so young,_ both physically and mentally, who deserves better _._ You think of arrow guy the father, the tired marksman, weary and true as he speeds to return on time to his friends. You think of Falcon, full of fire and determination, full of loss and love. Of _Steve,_ human and hurting and loyal to the end.

You give a high jump to the top of the steel stairs of the plane loading dock, breaking into a run as you land, shrunken. “I’ve got something big!”

 

Expendable. That's all you are. _Expendable._

You were expendable to Hank and Hope before they warmed up to you. They're your family now, but they weren't always.

Before everything else, you were expendable. If you lost the suit, it would really suck, but at least it wouldn't be Hank's Hope. You came to terms with it. It wasn't like that anymore. Hank and Hope certainly felt the guilt, but it was nothing at the end of the day.

With Hope and Hank, it was fool me once, shame on you.

But you must really have a neon sign over your head that reads some form of _gullible dumbass_ because, wow big surprise, you're imprisoned for a fight that wasn't yours. The Accords were your fight, not some airport grudge match. You got a life sentence in a weird water-boat prison and lost the suit. And Maggie, _god,_ Maggie, Paxton, _Cassie!_

Shame burns your ears and throat, coating your insides in your magma. It's explosive fury smashes against the insides of your ribs, knocking the wind out of you as it struggles to break free. Your diagnosed concussion doesn’t help. The doctor said something about not thinking too hard, giving his brain a break and not working too hard, staying awake for checks. Everything hurts, _everything._ All of it, too much.

 _Not here,_ you tell it. _Not here, not now, not here._

 _Where,_ it shrieks, _where, if not in our grave?_

It burns you from the inside out, roiling and churning and charring your insides in _hurt-anger-pain-fury-hurt_ . You really must be expendable if you'd really fallen into the same column of _cannon fodder_ as you had with Hank. They both fed your ego, stoked your need, your burning desire to _help,_ until it blinded you.

Expendable. _Expendable._

Captain America and his little best friends squad lured you in and spat you back out, into a worse prison than before and down a suit. Into betraying Hank and Hope's trust. What a goddamn fool you were. You don't think you've ever hated yourself more than you do now.

You should've known. They would never have really stuck their necks out for you. You didn't know them. They didn't know you. You beat Falcon once, and suddenly you think you're best friends with them? That they genuinely wanted anything to do with you than use you for their own gain? You were expendable. Always are and have been.

With all of them, with Team Cap?

Fool me twice, shame on me.

Cap breaks you all out. He assumes you'd join his renegade cause. You almost bark out a laugh, and instead tell him to drop you at home.

"They're probably watching them, your family," Falcon–Sam–says cautiously. Probably at your casual aura.

"I know," you say, smile, and step from the ship.

"I'd thank you or something, but frankly, this really sucked. Not gonna lie."

They stare at you. You stare back.

"Good luck, guys."

They echo it back at you faintly, confused even. Worried. But then you see arrow guy–Clint–and he's got a look on his face. Understanding.

You smile again, and jump down to the street, a shrunken suit in your pocket. The door is solid under your bruised knuckles, but Maggie throws the door open after a minute, tears in her eyes.

"I thought you died, or worse, you _bastard,"_ she breathes, and then you're being mobbed by your family, your true family.

You're arrested again, ten minutes later, but you can't stop crying this time, smiling crookedly.

 


End file.
